Story Structure is Not a Suit of Armour
Even if you were hoping it would make your book bomb-proof.
I’m sure I’m not the only writer who finds Tom Gauld’s cartoons both charming and hilarious, and wincingly close to the bone. And then I was planning last week’s tutorial on Story Structure for the Blue Pencil Editorial Agency, and a cartoon in this article about him (scroll down) struck particularly sharply.
A Gauld-esque, Tolkein-esque traveller with backpack, stick and sword, strides over a spiky hill, with spiky mountains in the background. Behind him trails a smaller traveller with elf-ears and a barrel for a backpack, reading a book. ‘We’ve had our “inciting incident”,’ the elf is saying, ‘and we’re on the “journey” so it seems like we’ll be having a “crisis” any minute now…’
And the traveller says, ‘This quest was a lot more fun before you got that book on story structure.’
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